May 6, 2011

Hello & welcome back to the playhouse! (AND) To more Nurses' Ghost Stories!

Though a couple of them aren't actual nursing stories, they were written by nurses & I liked them so much, I just had to include them! I hope you enjoy them (and all the stories) as much as I did! :)

By Jandlo506:
"I really believe this, I think that people's spirits do not always leave right away, sometimes they linger. My grandfather died when I was 4, and after he died, my grandmother left the house to stay with her daughter, my mom, for a little while. One day, my mom and one of my other aunts went to the house to pick up some clothes for my grandmom. They walked into the house and were standing in the kitchen when they heard sounds from upstairs, in my grandfather's sick room. They clearly heard feet hit the floor, as if someone was getting out of bed, and footsteps go across the floor. Both of them heard it, and my mom was so scared she wet her pants!

Later, after my grandmother went back home, she told my mom that my grandfather was still in the house, that she heard him calling her, moving around, opening drawers, etc. And I can say for sure, is that my grandmother was a practical and unemotional person, not superstitious or imaginative or anything like that. Very straight up and serious. If she said she heard my grandfather in that house, then she heard him! Whenever I went over, I refused to go upstairs alone, yet, when we were there earlier, before my grandfather died, which was all the time, I had no fear of going anywhere in the house, including upstairs to his room where he spent all his time once he got too sick. I was only 4, so my understanding of death was limited, but I had fear that I didn't have before he died.

Eventually, my grandmom moved to a smaller place...and my grandfather, who was a very good person, probably went his way...though my grandmom did say that years later, she woke up in the early dawn hours because she heard her front door open. She went to the living room and there was Grandpop, in the suit he was buried in, standing by the door. She said "What the hell are you doing here?!" and he said "I've come totake you with me, Marie." She told him she wasn't going anywhere, and went back to her bedroom....when she checked the living room again, he was gone."

From INurseUK:
"Now I cannot verify the truth of this story, but a very senior staff nurse told me this recently.

Our Oncology ward had students on as we almost always do. This was the Early shift and a patient had died in the night. The night staff had done Last Offices and the body had been taken to the morgue, but the night staff had not had chance to clear the room yet.

Well, Sister assigned the student nurse to clear up the deceased patient's belongings, clean and remake the bed and so on, and the student was happy to do this.

About 15 minutes into the task, the student nurse came flying out of the side room white as a sheet and ended up in Sister's office. There, she told Sister that she had been clearing items from the bathroom vanity unit, had glanced up, and had seen the recently-deceased patient looking over her shoulder in the mirror above the unit!

The student nurse was so badly shaken by this, that she was sent home for the rest of the day.

Imagination? Who knows?"

By Colzanurse:"Right after my beloved grandfather passed away, I had a very vivid dream that he telephoned me. He said he wasn't sure what was going on, and he asked me what had happened to him. I said "Grandpa, you just died two days ago!" He replied with perfect voice and intonation, "Oh my heavens!" I immediately had the sense of mind to ask him where he was, and he said he wasn't sure. I asked him what he could see, and he wasn't sure. I asked him what he could hear, and again he wasn't sure. Then he asked me in a scared tone if he could come over to my house, and I said, "Sure grandpa, I'm going to the front door right now to see if I can find you!" I opened the door, and could clearly see the neighborhood as if I was actually looking around at it. I called out for grandpa and then I woke up, and began sobbing inconsolably. It was absolutely the most vivid dream I'd ever had, and his voice and inflections were exactly as they were in real life. I felt like I had actually had a conversation with him. I've tried to tell a few people I trust and they just said that it must be because I feel so sad about losing him. I firmly believe he and I had a real conversation in our own way. He died in 2003 and I still miss him terribly. I wish I could have another one of those dreams where he and I can talk again so I can try to find out how he is doing, and if he is with my grandma who died about 5 years before that."

From Vhern246:
"I was on the ACE (Acute Care for the Elderly) floor and I was sitting, looking down, flipping through my index cards and I heard a man say, "How do I get out of here?"

Without looking up, I said, "Follow the hallway all the way down, past the other nurses station and through the double doors that have an exit sign at the top of them. That'll lead you to the elevators, or as I like to call it freedom."

"Hmmm." is what I heard, still looking down, I chuckled and quickly added, "Don't forget to push the silver panel on the right side of the-" I looked up and no one was there.

I got up and looked over the counter down the hall and didn't see anyone on either side. My fellow student nurse came out of the room a little ways down the hall and I stopped her.

"Did you see anyone come down the hall?"
"No, why? did you lose somebody?"
"No, I gave directions to this guy, but I didn't seem him leave."
"Is that who you were talking to?"
"Yeah! Did you see him?"
"Uh, no. And I didn't hear anyone else either."

We both looked at each other and froze in our spots. Then the our instructor comes around the corner and says "What are y'all doing?"

"Uh, we finished assessing the patients, What else is next?"

"Do me a favor, make sure they cleaned the room there" She pointed to the room across from where I was sitting.

"I thought there was a patient in there.", My fellow student says.

"He died early this morning", the instructor explains, "Poor guy was so anxious, all he kept asking was how to get out of here."

From StacyMae:
"I was just doing an internet search to help rationalize my very recent "experience". I have always heard stories from other nurses, but with the exception of a few unexplainable call lights, and monitors turning themself on and off, I never had much to contribute. I have have worked in trauma and burn critical care for the past decade and needless to say, I am around death a lot. Many patients will describe having loved ones present at time of death; but being a creature of science, I put it in the category of "hallucinating patient" and never thought much else of it. That all changed 2 days ago. I was working in the trauma/surgical ICU and was caring for a patient with end stage renal disease and sepsis due to an old infected dialysis cath. She was a DNR/DNI. She was blind from cataracts and diabetes (the blindness is important later in the story) I was in the process of starting her on CVVHD when she started conversing with her "spiritual guides" as she called them. I immediately did a neuro exam, and found she was completely intact. I then checked her blood sugar and her vitals, all were WNL. So I decided to let her talk about what she was seeing. She explained to me that there were multiple people around her bed, and became very discriptive with what they looked like and what they were telling her. They were giving her future predictions to tell me. Some were family members who had passed, and others she did not know. They were all different ages, the youngest being a 3 year old girl. (In all reality I was the only person in her room besides her) I talked with her awhile as I started up her dialysis. She explained that her time was almost up, that she wasn't scared. The spirits told her her body is too sick to go on, but her own spirit was not quite ready to leave this world yet. The spirits were going to be with her and wait for her spirit to be ready to leave. After letting her talk about how she felt about dying, I turned the lights down and closed the blinds so she could rest for awhile. I stepped outside of her room to chart. I was sitting down facing the room charting on the computer when I saw a very dark shadow move through the room. I jumped up and went in the room (I thought housekeeping or someone went into the room, and I was going to kick them out so she could rest) I walked into the room, and no one was there except for my patient. All of a sudden, at the head of her bed, on the opposite side of the room from me, was a very large dark moving shadow. My blind patient looked me straight in the eyes and then at the shadow(with her completly clouded over eyes) and said "You see it too!". She stopped breathing minutes later."

Below, is the photo of a nurse that is rumored to have died in a hospital. This photo was found on photobucket, so I can't guarantee the authenticity of it, but I just thought it was cool. :)

﻿"Over 8 years ago, I was employed at a place called "Custom Air Trays". They manufactured cremation supplies and caskets, supplying the local funeral homes. I made countless deliveries to many funeral homes around the area, but one particular delivery is forever burnt into my memory...

After parking behind the funeral home that I have delivered to several times before, I began to unload supplies onto a casket cart. I then opened the double doors to the storage area and pushed in the cart.

A lady, dressed in a long brown dress and brown plaid shirt (looked straight out of the 80′s) stood behind a table holding a styrofoam coffee cup (I figured she worked there and was on break). I pushed the cart further in just past the woman and asked her, “Is this a good place for me to put these trays?”

I received no answer and figured she didn’t hear me. I unloaded and went back outside for the second load. Once again, I pushed the cart inside just past the woman, and again I asked her, “Is this a good place for me to put these trays?” Again she didn’t answer, so I turned around to speak to her again, but she was gone.

She was no more then a few feet from me when I passed her. There was only one entrance in and out of that room. I ran out of the room, hoping to catch her just outside the door... but she was nowhere to be found! I quickly realized what I had just experienced, and immediately jumped into my van and fled back to work with no paperwork signed, andscared out of my mind!

My coworkers had a good laugh that day at my expense. A few weeks later, I made a delivery to the same funeral home and spoke with the director to tell him my story. All he had to say was, “You should see what goes on here at night!”

"Ghostly Warning"

"Years ago, we lived in an old building that at one time, was a funeral home. It was not uncommon to hear strange noises and things at all times of the day. The first summer we were there, my daughter was just a baby. I had just laid her down for a nap and laid down on the couch for a quick nap myself. After just a few minutes, I heard a man's voice calling my name. I got up and looked around, but saw no one. Laying back down, I heard him calling my name again, but this time, louder and more demanding. I got up and went to look in my daughter's room. She had pulled the blankets up over her head and couldn't breathe. I firmly believe that it was the man who had shot himself in the basement years before, warning me about my daughter. To this day, there are still caskets and vaults down stairs. They also still have the embalming table that was used for the funeral home. My daughter also says that she would see people walking past her door every night dressed in period clothes. This continued until we moved out after 8 years."

"Peek-a-BOO!

I see WHO?!"

"One night, my friends & I were cruisin' downtown in my 91 Buick (total piece of crap) which is a big ol' boat of a car, so it is very VERY hard to push, when all of the sudden, the car started to shake very violently & then stalled. I tried to crank the key not once, but three or four times, but the engine was dead silent (it wouldn't even turn over when I cranked the key). It was only about 9:00 or 9:30 PM when this happened, and none of us had a cell phone so we were obviously going to have to walk for help. We got out of the car, turned on the hazard lights, and pushed it to the curb. Then we started walking in search of a phone. It was kind of a rainy night, which made it even worse.

We walked down a couple blocks, and the only place in sight that could even possibly let us use their phone was a funeral home and by that point, it was pouring rain so we really had no other option.

All four of us jogged up to the doors of the funeral home, shook what water we could off of ourselves and walked in the doors. A blonde woman in her 40's was sitting at the front desk. As soon as we walked in, she asked, "May I help you?" We told her our car died about two blocks away and this was the only place within walking distance to use a phone.

She sat and stared at us for a few seconds and finally said, "I can let you use the phone in the break room if you want to do that" then she took my friend Andy into the break room to use the phone.

While he was gone, the rest of us were waiting in the lobby trying to get warm. I was checking out all the pictures and stuff on the walls when I noticed the viewing rooms. I started to walk towards what I'm pretty sure was the chapel (it looked like a church) but I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a tall, kind of husky man with a little white hair on his head, standing at the very front of the room.

He was dressed in a suit that almost looked vintage, like from the '70s or something. His eyes had heavy dark bags under them. I thought maybe he was a worker or something so I didn't really think much of it. I started to inch closer to the front of the room. He didn't move, he didn't even move his eyes. The closer I got, the paler he looked. It almost looked like he was transparent. All of the sudden, I got a very uneasy feeling and froze in the middle of the aisle. I had goose bumps on my arms now, but I couldn't move.

I finally got the nerve to move closer. He still didn't move, not a muscle. I stopped again. Just then I heard my friend say my name. I spun around as fast as I could because it scared me. She told me a tow truck was on its way and so was her mom. I nodded my head and turned to look at the man again, only to find he had disappeared! In the two seconds I had my back turned, he completely disappeared!

I walked up to the woman at the front desk and asked if there was a way to get out of the chapel in the front and she looked at me very puzzled and said,"No, the only way out is the doors you just came out of." then she asked me, "Why?"

I said, "The guy working here just scared the crap out of me."

She looked at me puzzled again and said, "Honey I'm the only one still here."

I couldn't believe it! I quickly thanked her and practically ran out of there! My friends asked what was wrong. I told them what had happened and they said they felt really uneasy just waiting in the lobby. We were all really, truly freaked out by this & I will never set foot in that place again!"